We, the authors of the original article, have decided not to implement the statistical method ‘penalization via data augmentation’ to our study, as suggested by Erfan Ayubi and Saeid Safiri. We have investigated whether this method could generate a valid odds ratio (OR) regarding corticosteroid use (as a risk factor); unfortunately, we would have to assume unreal data before applying the method, as we need a tentative OR a priori. The necessary data are currently unavailable, as we found this association incidentally...